Posted on 11/20/2003 12:14:22 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:44:56 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit against the gun industry.
The decision is expected to re-ignite U.S. Senate debate over a proposed bill immunizing the gun industry from being sued for crimes committed with their products.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I'm SHOCKED! SHOCKED, I say!
Oh really? I wasn't aware of any limitations beyond financial on how many firearms legal purchasers could buy, and the last I checked, legal purchasers could afford to buy more firearms than were produced.
Sessions (R-AL) I will take a few moments to talk about the MTBE question. It is a matter that has become a big point in the debate on the Energy bill. Frankly, I think it is a bit overdone. Some senators have said that if a company makes a product, the company ought to pay for it if their product causes damage. But that is not true. That is not the law in America.
That is not classical American liability law, tort law. As a matter of fact, it is an indication that this Congress and this country is losing its discipline on what is a legitimate basis for a lawsuit.
You can say, well, they made MTBE and it got into the water system in this community; therefore, the maker of MTBE ought to pay for it. They say that is what the law ought to be and they ought to pay.
Would somebody say Folgers should be responsible if a Folgers brand of hot coffee burned somebody in a McDonald's restaurant, or that McDonald's should be liable? If somebody takes a can of Campbell's soup and smashes a guy on the head with it, is the maker of the can of soup liable? Certainly not.
Let me share a couple of things. After 9/11, we realized we were facing a situation in which airlines had suffered a dramatic loss of ridership. Somebody woke up and said: Wait a minute, they are going to sue the airlines for 9/11. Why? Well, maybe somebody was asleep at the switch when a terrorist got by, so we can sue them. They think the airlines have a lot of money and they can pay for everybody and everybody will make lots of money. We can attach liability to them.
Congress, in considering that, passed legislation that would compensate the victims in New Jersey and their families for $1 million or $2 million each. As a consequence of that, they would waive liability claims against the company. The airlines' planes were seized, commandeered by terrorists. In truth, in the history of America, under classical law, the airlines are victims just as much as the owner of the Trade Center towers is a victim. We are in a situation in which the lawsuits in America, having eroded classical constraints on them, too often are successful in suing whoever is standing around--whether they have any real liability or not.
I think about the gun liability question. There are over 60 Senators, including Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, who support legislation to protect gun manufacturers, under certain circumstances, from liability. Why? Because cities and other groups, for political reasons, are suing the gun manufacturers because someone used their gun and committed a crime with it.
Well, under the classical rule of law--and I used this defense in one case--a person is not responsible for an intervening criminal act. The gun manufacturers make a gun that does what it is supposed to do. You aim it and point it and a bullet hits something or somebody. That is what the gun is supposed to do. The Federal Government passes legislation about how and to whom you can sell a gun, under what circumstances. They have to sign a statement, and there is a waiting period. They have to certify that they are not a drug addict or they have not been convicted of a felony. Then they can buy the gun, under certain circumstances. States have even more rules, and they comply with that. But they want to go further. They want to sue the gun manufacturer because somebody took a legal product, sold according to Federal law, and used it for a crime. They want to sue the gun manufacturer because I guess they think the gun manufacturers have a deep pocket of money. That is not what we ought to be about.
The MTBE was essentially a Government requirement over a decade ago. It is an oxygenate. It was produced and it did what we required to be done in order to improve air quality in America. The EPA could have stopped it if they had wanted to, but they never stopped utilization of it. It was encouraged. It was passed by Senator Daschle, who introduced an amendment that required it to happen. Everybody knew MTBE would be the product utilized more than any other product as an oxygenate to meet the environmental regulations.
So you say, well, if they put it in the water system, they ought to be liable. Right, if they put it into the water system, they ought to be liable. But if they didn't put it in the water system, they ought not to be liable. It is getting into water, but not because it is burned in the engines and goes through the environment and settles into the water. The argument is that some water aquifers are being polluted with MTBE as a result of leaking from tanks and from pipelines and matters of that kind.
It is legitimate, fair, legal theory that if a manufacturer of MTBE allowed its pipeline to leak or allowed the storage tanks to leak and the chemical got into the water system, then you can sue him. That is what we ought to be doing.
As I understand the language in this bill, it does not prohibit that kind of lawsuit. If you allow it to escape negligently into the system, then you are liable. That is what classical American law is all about. That is what it has always been about. However, it has never been about the producer of a substance being liable for pollution if somebody else takes it and dumps it into the water system of America. How ridiculous can that be? The person who dumped it in the water system is the one who ought to be liable and ought to pay.
As I understand the language in the bill, that is all that it says. You have to be the one who was responsible for letting it get into the water system. Maybe it is a local gasoline distributor who has a bunch of old tanks that leak and that person allowed it to get into the water. Is a manufacturer somewhere that didn't have any contact with this company liable for the leak? Certainly not. If we have any legal discipline left in this country, certainly not. But that is where we are heading.
[Page: S15176] GPO's PDF
Of course, if the gun manufacturers got together and decided how many guns to manufacture, they would be in clear violation of federal anti-trust laws.
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